S
by Gancena
Summary: A completely experimental fic done completely by the seat of my pants. Not even I'm sure what it's about, yet.
1. Move 'n

Once upon a time, there was a child who loved Nintendo, and they took their toys of famous characters and pretended to make them fight epic battles.

Once upon a later time, there was a kid who, after having some trouble with her more structured fanfiction, decided to take whatever drifted through her head and turn it into a fic, even if it was strange. In fact, she hoped it was.

Yes, of course that second one's me. I can't guarantee any of the following is true, but I sure did think of it at some point or another. Though I suppose if you're reading it, that automatically makes it that bit much more real.

Now enough first-person stuff. Let's have a strange-ish story.

* * *

It's move-in day for the second season of the fourth gathering of Super Smash Brothers. Yes, the second season. After the humans decided to choose and include downloadable content for the game version of the tournaments, the Crazy and Master Hands took it upon themselves to invite said fighters to come in for the real version and host the whole affair all over again.

That had been an exciting time for everyone. Previous fighters were the among the first to be called back into battle, and people were ecstatic to hear they were coming back home, so to speak. Then new fighters had rolled in, some of them having heard whispers of famed warriors from other worlds being asked to partake in a secret fighting festival—a place where combat was equal parts sport and play. Only some, though. Others… well. Bless them.

"You're sure you're going to be all right, darling?" Corrin's older foster sister Camilla asked for the fifth time.

Corrin sighed, but smiled. "Yes, big sister. I'm sure."

"Even though you've literally never heard of these Smash Brothers before?" their younger blood brother Takumi said, placing another bag by his sibling's side.

"Well, it can't be all bad, can it?" Corrin asked. "If Chrom said it was an honor to be invited, then it must be."

"Remember that his wife and daughter were the ones invited, not him," said Ryoma, the oldest blood brother. "He may have a limited impression of this."

"Apparently he gets into the battlefield for one of their ultimate attacks," Corrin said.

"Still, be careful," Ryoma replied.

"And remember: We are all your family. You can call on any of us if you need help," added oldest foster brother Xander.

"But you're gonna do great!" chirped younger foster sister Elise, hugging her older sibling again. "Do your best! And have fun! Oh! And see if and when we can all visit each other!"

"Good luck o-out there," added shy Sakura, the younger blood sister.

"Corrin has the devil's own luck," said younger foster brother Leo. "They'll be fine, Princess."

"They'll do great!" older blood sister Hinoka declared. "We'll be cheering all the way. So will Azura. "

"Thank you," said Corrin. "All of you." Though Corrin continued to smile as their sisters swarmed them for one last big hug, they couldn't help but feel a bit of a pang of sadness. Of all the people at home, Azura… Azura was the most special. Though she wasn't a sibling in either blood or bond, they still loved her dearly.

But the thought broke off when Corrin spotted a little yellow creature running by their doorway, clutching a bottle tightly.

There went Pikachu, finally having accosted some ketchup from the initial shipment of supplies for the Smash Mansion.

There are so many Pikachu across all the worlds. This one comes from Saffron City in Kanto, where the first Smash Brothers tournament happened to have an arena. Of course, they were a Pichu then. And once upon a time, the Pikachu fighting in that first tournament had suddenly fallen from the very top of a building, slamming onto the ground right in front of them.

You can see where that went.

Yes, they were friends ever since, and he himself gave then-Pichu their invitation to Melee, the second iteration of Super Smash Brothers, and then-Pichu became the smallest, most accidentally self-harming fighter the place had yet seen. But that Pikachu had a Trainer and a journey to eventually get back to, so when Brawl came around, he had to decline his invitation.

The Hands were in a bit of a bind, then. Pikachu was one of the Original Eight—a freaking staple! To even delay his appearance in Smash Brothers was lunacy!

Then-Pichu then realized if they evolved, they could act as Pikachu in Pikachu's stead. It was a Crazy idea, just like the type of idea Crazy Hand would usually come up with, but then Master Hand decided it was so Crazy that it might just work.

It did. There hasn't been any explicit statements about Pikachu being replaced by a successor, but people definitely speculate. The Hands let them. It's actually pretty good for buzz and business.

But Pikachu didn't really care if people knew who they once were or not. They had been able to get away with asking for little packets of ketchup from restaurants around Saffron between Smash tourneys, but they'd been aching to have an entire bottle of their own, to just guzzle down or to have a little sip here, a little sip there.

So outside they ran to find a quiet spot to gorge themselves on the condiment, completely veering away from the other Smashers and their entourages of friends and family and well-wishers and their boxes and barrels and boxes and boxes and bags and boxes and to the side of the mansion, finally sitting their butt down and flipping open the cap ravenously. They tilted their head back and squeezed. Nothing came. Pikachu looked at the lid and realized this was one of those "sealed for freshness and protection" bottles and groaned and twisted the cap off completely and placing it on his short fat leg before picking and picking and picking at the edge of the seal, trying to get that little gap they needed to just—rip!

"Ye-he-hes!" Pikachu cheered, almost tilting the bottle back as it was before realizing the cap was still off. But before they reached for it, they ran a tiny finger along the edge of the bottle and stuck it in their mouth, slurping the sample off. The sweet tomato taste awakened a thrilling joy, and Pikachu sighed and hummed in contentment.

Then they screwed the cap back on and tilted their head and the bottle back and squeezed lightly and filled their mouth as much as they comfortably could before pausing to savor and swallow. Pikachu sighed again and knocked back for a second mouthful. But when they prepared for the third, they heard a little high voice shout " _DEDEDEDEDEDEDE!"_ and they stopped.

They looked. In the distance, there was Kirby, just having landed on the head of King Dedede in enthusiastic greeting.

Pikachu stood right up. Don't misunderstand: Kirby was great. He was one of the Original Eight, part of the Forever Twelve! But Kirby was known to have the single biggest appetite among the Smashers. And there Pikachu had been sitting with a bottle of ketchup. That they wanted for themself. So they had to relocate.

Pikachu took their bottle and ran all the way around to the back of the mansion. After making sure the coast was absolutely clear, they sat their butt back down and resumed guzzling. A third, fourth, fifth mouthful, with little sign of stopping. Maybe.

No, no, they thought, they were getting a little full, so maybe one more and save the rest for later. Though they'd have to mark it somehow so nobody else would take it.

They'd ask someone else for a pen that'd show up on plastic, they thought as they took in their final mouthful.

"Hi!"

Pikachu almost shouted, but opening up their throat to make noise almost choked them, and they coughed once, sending spare ketchup splatting over their face and onto the ground in front of them.

They swallowed what was left, rubbed the splatted ketchup from their eyes, and looked at Kirby.

Pikachu didn't know what to say, so they went with "I thought you were inside."

Kirby shook his head. "Not yet. I saw you earlier and wanted to say hi, but when I looked up, you'd vanished!"

Oh. So the whole thing had been pointless. Pikachu continued to look Kirby in the eye and slowly licked their lips before swallowing what they got there.

"Are you gonna finish that?" Kirby said.

There it was. "Not today." That much was true.

"Can I have some?"

Pikachu looked at the smear of ketchup still on their arm and then at the mostly empty bottle, watching the remaining bits slowly slide down. Feeling his stomach slowly bloat and seeing Kirby's earnest-as-ever face, they decided, okay, sure, they'd share after all.

"Sure. Just waterfall it, yeah?" they said, handing over the ketchup.

Kirby squeezed a fair amount into his mouth as Pikachu licked the remaining ketchup off their arm, then cleaned off the rest of their face and licked that off, and bent down and around a little to catch whatever had landed elsewhere, even on the grass; they didn't mind. They'd eaten plenty off the ground.

Kirby had actually left some when he closed the cap and handed it back. Pikachu then thought to ask, "Hey, you can write, right?"

"Yeah. People still ask how I grab the pencil, but yeah, I can. Why?"

"Could you label this for me before I stick it in the fridge? My fingers are too short to do it myself."

"Okay."

"So you still don't know how you do it?"

"Nope!"

"Does the pencil just kind of… stay?"

"I… guess…?"

"Huh."

Pikachu paused and looked out to the horizon, where the main arena would be once the thing was ready to start.

They belched. "'Scuse me."

"It's all right with me," Kirby said.

Pikachu then allowed themself to flop backwards. "I should practice writing."

* * *

 _So, um._

 _Well, I've known for a long time that I wanted to write a Super Smash Brothers fic again, since it was my first real fandom and where I really got into writing as a whole. Sure didn't think it'd be like this, though, even as recently as an hour ago._

 _So like I said, I don't really know what this is about, other than the Smashers doing stuff. Which is like a lot of other fics, really, but I'd just begun rereading_ Gravity's Rainbow _, which is known, among other things, for its absolute absurdity, both in its events and in its prose. That, too, is something I'd wanted to play around with for a while, though I can't quite say I'm polished in either humor or absurdity. But, hey, these are some good training grounds, maybe. So as a nod to that, this... thing is named_ S. _, which is a direct nod to Pynchon's first novel, titled_ V. _._

 _And yeah, I am referring to both Corrin and Pikachu with the singular "they". It's about time I did some stuff with non-binary characters._


	2. Out One End

Yoshi is in the kitchen.

Not having much to haul with him from Yoshi's Island to the Smash Mansion, his move was quick. And he immediately decided that he'd do something nice for the others, especially the newcomers and the younger ones who were just a little more likely to be overwhelmed.

Food, Yoshi decided quickly, was always a good way to make people feel more at home.

The kitchen's well-equipped, but what's currently in the fridge doesn't mesh with his imagination right away: water, juices, milk, butter, which he takes because he'll probably end up needing to slick _some_ thing, cold cuts, garlic?—oh geez, Wario's already been here—cheeses, vegetables—he takes some of those, actually, everyone could stand to eat more vegetables, even him. But there's a surprising lack of eggs in there.

But Yoshi's more concerned for the others regarding eggs than he is about himself.

Then he gets an idea—he'll make a giant omelette. Surely that'll feed the newcomers and the returning fighters who weren't around last season and then some!

A giant omelette, of course, requires a lot of eggs. Or a single big egg.

Yoshi hesitates. He could push one out right then—he really could—but would that throw people off, especially the newcomers? Maybe. Unless they never know.

He glances around, making sure no one's there. There's plenty of distant chatter, definitely, and heavy footsteps and thumps of boxes and their contents and boxes and people flopping on beds just for a second, but no one close enough to make him worry.

So he pauses and breathes and squats and, from the front of his stomach, pushes. He literally feels the egg forming, then crowning, then—POP!

A Yoshi egg comparable to that of an ostrich wobbles upright on the floor.

As he begins to crack the egg with the end of a fork, he briefly thinks how unfortunate it'd be if learning to lay an egg at will weren't such an important milestone in a Yoshi's life. Had he pushed the wrong way, he could easily have shat right on the floor and only _maybe_ have an egg to show for it. And that would've put a damper on cooking, on appetites, on everything to do with the kitchen. But it was more or less the Yoshi equivalent of, say, a human toddler's potty training. Not so much aiming for a toilet bowl, but more of how to get the right thing to come out.

By then, Yoshi can open up the egg by hand, and, shoving potty thoughts aside, he pours the entire thing—a yolk big as a ball and runny, runny, eternally running whites—into a clear bowl, almost filling it up completely.

Once he's gotten all he can out of the egg, he crushes the shell to discreetly throw it away and realizes there's no pan big enough to cook the omelette he wants to make. So he searches lower cabinets and finds a griddle plate to put on top of the stove instead.

There are finally nearby noises while he turns on the burners and starts beating the egg. A second after he starts hearing it, he realizes that it's actually the excited scramble of paws against hardwood followed directly by the slapping of flippers.

Hunter and Ducky, the Duck Hunt duo, slip into view and Ducky jumps back, wings flapping, when Hunter doubles back to run into the kitchen, immediately rearing up to put his paws on Yoshi.

"Hello!" Yoshi greets. Hunter doesn't let up while Ducky takes her place at his side, but at least he stays there while Yoshi pours beaten egg onto the griddle so they at least start to cook.

Finally, Yoshi can turn to Hunter and give him the pettings he so clearly wanted. His tongue sticks out at least a little the whole time. Once he's got Hunter on his back, Ducky taps her head against Yoshi's arm, asking the same. Yoshi immediately strokes her back, then scratches a little right by her wings, against the spot that makes her fluff her feathers. Everyone knows those spots. Well—except the newcomers, but they'll learn quickly. Everyone did in Melee, everyone did in Brawl, and everyone did in the first season of this tourney.

Yoshi pauses to break some of the vegetables by hand and finds the duo pacing around his feet, pausing when Hunter sniffs the fridge briefly. Probably the garlic. Did that even need to be refrigerated, or was Wario being himself?

Yoshi remembers. Some regions like their omelettes with ketchup. He forgets where or even when he heard this, but he sure can imagine why. Sort of. He's not quite sure if he's knowingly eaten eggs, so the thought of that flavor eludes him.

He grabs the fridge handle and waits for Hunter to back up before opening it and finding… no ketchup.

Yoshi makes a questioning hum. He'd slipped in earlier to grab an apple off one of the counters and he could have sworn he'd glimpsed ketchup another counter, ready to use or store. He shrugged. It wasn't like it was an egg.

Hunter scrambles away from the fridge—definitely the garlic. Yoshi's going to have to ask about that, if he remembers. Dogs definitely aren't supposed to have it. Ness, having a dog himself back home, had been adamant about what the Duck Hunt duo could and couldn't eat, even more so than the guy who dropped them off at the Mansion to begin with, and most everyone had made sure to take it to heart.

Yoshi grabs two stalks of asparagus in his hand and realizes that he could give them each a little, as a treat. So he breaks off the heads, pulls one apart, and then kneels to offer it.

Ducky is quick to nibble at the shreds while Hunter sniffs once and chomps his down. He's done first, and he sits and licks his lips and nose while Ducky finishes hers.

Then there's a sound, like a little boy running down one of the other halls, and the duo scramble out to meet that, no doubt hoping that it's one of the kids.

Hunter lets Ducky get on his back before running again, knowing he'd accidentally leave his best friend in the dust if he went ahead.

They've been absolutely wired all day. People were coming in and out and virtually everyone wanted to pet them and say hello! They'd recently come out of one of the newcomer's rooms, the one with the huge family. They'd definitely gotten loved on there. Hunter and Ducky definitely liked them already. But really, they liked everyone. There was so much to like. Even when they'd first come to meet everyone, everyone doted on them as if they'd known each other forever.

Just when Hunter turned to go up the staircase, there by the hat rack where Hunter's leash and Ducky's harness hung was Ness with his little group of friends and a new boy with yellow hair.

"Hey, it's the Duck Hunt Duo!" called Paula, Ness' friend in the pink dress. Everyone turned and Hunter wasted no time in going over there to sit and let his tongue loll a bit and let Ducky climb onto his shoulders for easier petting.

Then a white dog face emerged from behind Ness and thrust its nose towards Hunter's—Ness' dog, King. And then there was a new brown dog face from behind him, and though his tongue was lolling, too, he hung back a little with the new boy.

"That's Lucas," said Ness, or was he projecting the thought into Hunter and Ducky's minds? It didn't matter. This was what let Ness understand them better than literally anyone else. "He was around for Brawl, but stayed home during the first season. He's here now. His dog Boney's only here to see him off. You guys can say hello if you want."

So Hunter got up and approached Boney and they sniffed and sniffed and sniffed.

"(Hi!)" said Boney.

"(Hello!)" said Hunter.

"(Please take care of my human while he's here!)"

"(Okay! I can do that!)"

"(How long have you known Ducky?)"

"(Forever! She's like my best friend and little sister all rolled into one!)"

"(Can she speak dog?)"

"(No, but we learned to understand each other!)"

"(I know what you mean! Animals can all talk to each other if only they try!)"

Having established that, Ducky asked, "(Ness said you weren't staying, though? You two look like you could make a great team!)"

"(We are!)" Boney declared. "(But Lucas was invited by himself, and he took it! But I'll be okay! I have plenty of humans to love!)"

The dogs paused to listen to Ness tell his and Lucas' friends a brief story. "Ducky is Hunter's nickname for her, actually. If I didn't notice that, I would have almost named her Call—like a duck call."

Lucas' tall pink-haired friend spoke up "How do you almost name something?"

"I mean I considered it until Mega Man mentioned a rumor he'd heard about a rising new hero named Beck, who happens to have a sister named Call. At least, he thinks they're siblings. Reminded him of his own family, he said."

Hunter realized that he needed to go outside. He turned his head toward Ducky and let out a low ruff. Ducky flew up and took both Hunter's leash and her own very small harness, leash perpetually attached, in her bill.

She laid them down in front of Hunter and he picked up her harness to let her slip in as much as she could. This was the hard part. With no thumbs to work with, they would struggle to clasp the harness, to attach the leash. They kept trying every single time, at least until someone came by and did it for them. And, well, everyone was still right there.

"There you go," Ness declared. "So you wanna go outside?"

Hunter took the end of Ducky's leash in his mouth, and she did the same with his. The front double doors of the Mansion were still propped wide open for the mass move, and the Princess Peach and a line of Toads all carried a smallish box each through. The duo walked over and waited patiently for the line to end, but the Toads decided instead to shift to go through the space of only one door to allow them to slip by.

Leashes still in mouths, they trotted over to the nearest stretch of grass. Hunter didn't even bother to sniff out a spot before curling his butt, not realizing in his need that one or two people's first view of them would be of them, a dog and a duck, walking each other, with the dog faced away from everyone else, pooping.


End file.
